When Kaleidoscopes Shatter
by OtaFox
Summary: Being away from your home for a long time is hard, but it’s even harder to come back and see everything changed. People come and go, even best friends drift apart...


Disclaimer: I don't own Jack Karouack or his stuff, nor Yu Yu Hakusho, but the Cat's Claw Café, Twiggs, and Sio are MINE!!! So is any of the other random crap in this fic. Right... Like anyone cares...  
  
When Kaleidoscopes Shatter   
  
By OtaFox  
  
Chapter One: Mantis Parachute   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
I hesitated. It was funny really, me of all people afraid to knock on a door. What was the worst that could happen? He'd moved and someone else would answer the door? No, I couldn't imagine him ever getting enough money to move... unless his house burned down again. I chuckled. He would have, just to spite me.   
  
Placing my hand just over the bell, I vaguely wondered if he'd remember me. We'd been good friends, there was no reason not to. If anyone, Kuwabara should've been the one to forget. But no, he'd remembered. I almost wish he hadn't though... Being called a ghost and sprayed with a fire extinguisher wasn't really my cup of tea. Of course, he'd apologized and invited me in....  
  
I traced the design of the bell with my index finger. No. There were plenty of people who I should be afraid of seeing again, but not him. Not my good old pal Yusuke! Sucking up my fears I went for it!   
  
I slammed my fist down on that bell so fast an Olympic runner would have been jealous! I smiled, brimming with pride, that is, until I realized I'd slammed the button so hard it was now imbedded in its neat little casing. Well, crap!   
  
Frantically I tried to pull it out with my fingernails. My hand slipped and I cut my thumb on the metal part. Pain jutting up through my hand I cursed in every language I knew. For the first time in my life, I wished I was a girl.   
  
No, I was a Master! A legend! When my name was mentioned men screamed and ran like little girls! Women passed out! Children wet their pants! I would NOT be defeated by a doorbell! Unconsciously placing all my attention from the occupant of the house to the bell, I launched a full-scale attack! Scratching and biting in a furious storm that the devil himself would fear, I went after the round lump of opaque plastic!   
  
I promptly ran into the wall and fell over flat on my back. I let out a ferocious scream and glared at the little button which snuggled deep into its nest... so smug! Well, I'd show it! I leapt to my feet, about to commence another onslaught of terror when I herd a little "pop!" The button flew out and hit me right between the eyes. I staggered beck and tripped over a conveniently located pot of dead flowers! Poor little guys, and landed in a very unattractive position in the snow. The button sat neatly in-front of my face innocently. Lovely.  
  
Laughter erupted behind me. I tried to turn around and slipped, knocking a drain pipe, and a pile of snow fell off the roof and buried me with a thud. The laughter only got louder and a crash rang out, which I assumed meant whoever was laughing at me fell over.   
  
I could feel my cheeks burning so hot the ice was melting. In an impossible attempt to save my dignity, I got up, shook the snow from my head and turn around. There rolling around in the doorway was Yusuke. He was laughing so hard tears were running down his face and he was stuck halfway in a snowbank. I gave an embarrassed grin and waved.   
  
"Hey... Yusuke..." I managed to squeak.   
  
And so was my glorious official arrival back to Ningenkai... I need a drink...  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
It wasn't really so bad... After he invited me in, the laughter subsided. It was only a little snark her and there now. We were sitting on his couch conversing civilly now. Or as civil as you can get with Yusuke. I was impressed really, he'd only made one stab at my pride and three pretty-boy jokes. And at that point in the conversation, things were going quite well.  
  
"So, seen anyone else yet?" He asked while slumping onto the arm of the couch and trying to balance a beer on his foot.   
  
"No actually. I've seen Koenma and Botan, who naturally weren't all that excited, and I went over to Genkai's..." I immediately began to regret saying that. Apparently while I was gone, the old woman had died, leaving the temple to Kuwabara and Yukina who I was pleasantly surprised to learn were married. Genkai was practically Yusuke's mother, and bringing up her death wasn't exactly something one says to a guy who you haven't seen in years.   
  
"It's great that they got together," Strangely he just smiled and shook his head. "But I guess I always imagined him to be chasing her around forever! You know, especially 'cause of Hiei. We all thought he was going to kill Kuwabara when he found out, but he just told 'em to be a good dog or he'd be barbecue and walked off! Man, the look on Kuwabara's face was priceless! And after he'd prepped mentally for weeks to tell the guy this! You should've seen it!" He snickered and took a swig of his beer, oblivious to my Genkai issue. I pretended to be very interested in the pattern on my sweater for a moment. He noticed and his expression softened.   
  
"Oh, I'm sorry... I guess I shouldn't have mentioned him..." He trailed off.   
  
Him? Who was him? I blinked confused. Yusuke blinked back. Since when was Genkai a... then it hit me! Hiei! He thought I was sad because of Hiei! I smiled for a second, before I was given another shock. This time it was one of dread... Hiei. I'd forgotten about Hiei! Well, forgotten wasn't the word, more like pretended to ignore because of the doom that was synonymous with that topic... Darn! Now I couldn't avoid this topic! I put on a mask which I'd been perfecting for the past few hundred years and asked innocently...  
  
"Mentioned who?" Yusuke gave me a blank look and raised an eyebrow. Well, that was a waist of hundreds of years...   
  
"What do you mean who?" he narrowed his eyes. No! He was on to me!  
  
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" I tried to cover. "I didn't mean to bring up Genkai!" It wasn't really a lie...  
  
"Genkai?" He blinked. Insert foot in mouth....  
  
"I didn't know she was dead! Honest!" Clever... not! I raised my hands and tried to act as piteous as possible. He smiled a bit, his features softening. Good, I sighed, he bought it. Inari, if Hiei was here he'd be having the time of his life insulting me. I could just see him sitting on the window, fangs glinting evilly, 'Baka Kitsu-'  
  
"It's ok she's been dead for a while. I'm over it." I was slammed back into reality. I put my hand behind my head and laughed.   
  
"So, anyone else die I should be aware of?" I joked casually. His face darkened. Wow. Three for three, this day has been going so well for me. I shifted uncomfortably.  
  
"Mmm..." Topic change time! "Well, I bet you married Keiko by now!" Glass shattered and beer soaked into the carpet. Keiko? What?!   
  
"WHAT?!" I shouted on my feet now. When the? Why would? Who could? How the hell was I be so stupid? I sat back down. "I'm sorry, just a bag of happy memories arn't I?" Yusuke watched the liquor drip off the splinters of glass, brown eyes fixated on the sparkling liquid. My mind was overflowed with guilt.   
  
"Yusuke... I-"  
  
"It's not your fault." he cut me off. "With all the trouble I got into it was bound to happen..." My curiosity got the better of me...  
  
"How? Was it... " He looked up at me, all the life drained from his eyes, and shook his head.   
  
"No, no... It was... humans." I blinked. Humans? "...I guess I pissed off one too many people as a kid..." he laughed, it sounded forced, "nothing to do now..." I moved over to put my hand on his shoulder when he popped up and smiled. A very fake smile. I smiled back sadly.   
  
"I know what you need! You need a drink!" He exclaimed/shouted in my ear. I winced hoping I wouldn't go def. "I need a drink! We both need a drink! Let's go get a drink! I know just the place! It's a place called Tripple C, short for the Cat's Claw Café! I know the girl who owns it, come on!" In a matter of seconds I was in my coat, out the door, and being dragged down the street by a crazed lunatic. I really did miss this place...  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
The café was off the main drag, hidden in a clean little ally. A sign hung out side the door, it had the shadow of a cat drinking tea on it and the name in curvy letters. There was one window and I could see it was the classic beatnik get-up. Thick curtians artistic furniture, beads and strange light fixtures. I was dragged in the door.   
  
The people were sprawled out on stools, benches and even the floor drinking coffee and listening to some black-clad chick belt out poetry that made Jack Kerouac seem normal. Or maybe it really was Jack's. Who knew?   
  
"...But now I was three miles into the industrial jungle of L.A. in mad sick sniffling smog night and had to sleep all that night by a wire fence in a ditch by the tracks being waked up all night by rackets of Southern Pacific and Santa Fe switchers bellyaching around, till fog and clear of midnight when I breathed better (thinking and praying in my sack) but then more fog and smog again and horrible damp white cloud of dawn and my bag too hot to sleep in and outside too raw to stand, nothing but horror all night long, except at dawn a little bird blessed me..."  
  
I watched blankly as I was shoved in a booth. At the end of the girl's poem, or whatever it was, everyone cheered and clapped. I didn't get it. I really didn't... I glanced over to Yusuke who was clapping with everyone else. What the hell was he doing here? Maybe it was an underground drug ring. Yeah... that was it...   
  
  
  
A figure drifted out of the dark fog of insanity and I blinked. A girl in a violet leather top and baggy black jeans leaned up against the table, which at this point I had realized was really a large crate, and smiled at me. Yusuke, who must have known her, because when he got up and hugged her he wasn't slapped, demonstrated the correct way to order here. No menu needed.   
  
"Hey Twiggsey, Lizard Water with a mango splash and two leaves on the rim. Oh, and... Well," he nodded to me, "giv'em a Mantis Parachute with some telephone wire in the glass." I assumed he was speaking some sort of code, but then I wasn't sure how much of the airborne hallucinogens were present, so I stared at the painting of the melted sporks on the wall. It was trippy... All the colors started to swirl and bend... Then they began to dance... One of the sporks, who informed me her name was "Blapa Ku" asked me if I wanted to expire. I wasn't sure what that referred too, but I nodded. Spinning off into the ocean of light we sang, then a was asked for a grapefruit. We were about to go and save the lemon drops from the Mardi Gras bandits when Yusuke hit me.   
  
I turned around and asked him if he was being eaten by the cursive too. He just handed me my "Mantis Parachute" and said he was going to find Twiggs because I'd looked at the painting too long. I nodded. We needed a teepee at this point, and the crate was trying to inveterate me. That was a good plan of action. He grinned and walked off. I stared at my glass. It was blue with some kind of odd smelling liquid in it. I drank it and wondered how they managed to juice so many bugs for this... with a telephone no less. It was good... So was the poetry...  
  
"All day long  
  
wearing a hat  
  
that wasn't on my head."  
  
"Following each other  
  
my cats stop  
  
when it thunders."  
  
"Glow worm  
  
sleeping on this flower -  
  
your light's on."  
  
This place was nice... I should come here more often.   
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Eyes.  
  
They were glowing softly.  
  
And they were blood red.   
  
Glowing scarlet in a black sea. Ohhg... I know those Eyes... The blackness fades to white... A voice calls out...  
  
Mister...  
  
Mister...  
  
My name isn't mister! It's... It's... I forget... Not mister... Voice getting louder... Calling... Calling...  
  
BAM!  
  
I jumped up and rubbed my head. The world came into focus. I was on a couch, in a room with lots of fabric hung on the walls. Oh. The Café. I looked over to my right. A girl sat there. A girl with large red eyes, long dark hair and looked like a child. Wow... That's not creapy...  
  
"Hey there Mister. Glad to see you're up!" She smiled. She was really cute.   
  
"What the heck happened? Where am I? Who are you?" I closed my eyes groaned. What was going on here? She giggled softly. I liked her voice it was soft.  
  
"You're still in the Café, don't worry. You stared at "Cirk dii Sporkitsu" too long. That painting gets more people... Why the management hasn't removed it is beyond me..." She smiled at me again. I shrugged. Hypnotic art, why not? "Oh, and you'll be fine. Just don't look at that painting anymore. You were passed out on the table, so Twiggs asked me to move you back here. We're in her office." Office? Ok. Girl named Twiggs? Ok. Slowly getting a grip on reality? Ok.  
  
"Goodness!" the girl who looked disturbingly like Hiei gasped, "I forgot to tell you my name! Sorry! I'm Sio de Tanka!" she extended her right hand, "and you are...?"  
  
"Kurama," I said yawning. "I'm Suichi." I took her hand and shook it. Nice grip... She gave me an odd look. "Wha?" I asked not quite recovered.   
  
"You just said 'Kurama I'm Suichi,' is that, um, normal?" I looked at her bewildered. And smacked my head.  
  
"No, no! I'm Suichi Minamino... Uh sorry!" I grinned, she gave me a weirder look than before. The heck? "I'm sorry, did I say something wrong?"  
  
"Well... Maybe..." What did that mean? "Maybe if you happen to be the same red-haired, green-eyed Suichi Minamino who used to be Japan's top student and then disappeared with no trace for ten years..." I fell back onto the couch. This was not my day...  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
OtaFox: Man... That wasn't supposed to get so trippy...  
  
Kurama: What the heck is wrong with me?   
  
OtaFox:...Ah, relax fox-boy, you're just discombobulated...  
  
Kurama: NO!  
  
Sio: I'd say so...  
  
Kurama: Hey! Who are you anyway? Hiei's daughter?  
  
Sio: Nope! Not even related to him! But you don't get to know! HA HA!  
  
Kurama: What gives?!  
  
OtaFox: Okie! Bye reader-y people! Review please or no more trippy-nes!   
  
Sio:..or lack there of...  
  
Kurama: This isn't faaaaiiir.... 


End file.
